In a Nutshell: Ellen has car trouble. The tow truck man is a guy she knew in high school. Turns out he wanted to ask her to the prom way back when.
Observations: I thought this story was above average. Sometimes I like it when the author constructs the story so it feels as though a lot of time has passed. In this case, the almost entire story happens as we read it. Except for "A few minutes later, they pulled into the service station," there are no jumps ahead. It was refreshing.
I wanted to point out a couple of things. One, notice how Andermann helps the reader identify with the heroine with the whole internal monologue about being called "ma'am" versus "miss." Who among us hasn't felt a similar emotion?
Also notice how smoothly she worked in a physical description and some backstory when she talks about Ellen's curly hair. In one fell swoop you get a mental picture of Ellen, you see they already know each other, that she got a divorce last year, and she's optimistic enough by now to get herself a new look. This is the type of multi-tasking you have to do when you only have 800 words to work with.
My Favorite Part:
"You know, Ellen, I had a big crush on you in high school."
Ellen felt her heart skip. "You did not," she laughed.
Photo by ToastyKen (cc)
2 comments:
I loved this story. I thought it was well written and it surprised me to see an author name I didn't recognize. A little bit of every day life with a happy ending. A perfect WW story.
The biggest plus-point for me with this is that the couple were older. Nice to have characters with a few miles on the clock. Just one thing - isn't sending a tow-truck for a car that's merely stalled a bit OTT? You'd expect the engineer to try to get it started first, wouldn't you? Otherwise, nicely done, Monica. Good to see a new name, too, gives hope to those of us who haven't got there yet.
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